


Can't Say No

by AmbitiousSkychild



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Childhood Friends, Drunk Shinanigans, Established Relationship, Flashbacks, Home Videos, M/M, Marriage Proposal, all the losers club, background blossoming stanbrough, but it's the losers y'all know what's going on, drink every time someone says dude or man, flashbacks in the form of home videos, oh also language, richie and eddie are chaotic, richie and eddie have had a real cute life together okay, richie is trying his best, so are stan and bev, some pining ben a little bit, young adult losers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22553248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbitiousSkychild/pseuds/AmbitiousSkychild
Summary: “What’s that mean?” asks six-year-old Richie.“It means your daddy and I love each other very much,” answers Maggie Tozier off-screen, patient and sweet just like always. “It means we made a promise to each other to be together forever no matter what.”“Whoa, forever?” Richie echoes.“Uh-huh,” Maggie hums.“No matter what?”“That's right."“Well then, I wanna marry Eddie,” Richie decides. He’s got that look on his face that he gets when there’s no way he’ll be told no. He’s watching his mom with determined eyes, waiting for her reaction, but then she laughs, surprised and quiet and Richie grins back.“Shouldn’t you ask him, first?”“Oh!”Or: In which Richie is a romantic, just trying to propose to his boyfriend, and Eddie is an idiot trying to figure out what the hell Richie is up to
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 64
Kudos: 471





	Can't Say No

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a tumblr post by [thatgazebobullshit](https://thatgazebobullshit.tumblr.com/), and it's the cutest thing i've ever read. I only hope I did it justice

The reason there’s a giant projector in their living room is because, simply fucking put, Eddie just can’t say no to Richie anymore. He knows this, he is _flawed_ , he’s aware, he’s long since admitted it to himself, he’s _working_ on it.

Richie came home with it a couple hours ago, stating he won it at work, and Eddie doesn’t doubt it for a second. As if being a radio DJ isn’t already obnoxious enough–they have to go tossing unusual, cumbersome raffle prizes into it. He’d come home with it all in a large box, grinning like he does–like everything is just fantastic all the time. He’d run straight to Eddie in the kitchen like an excited toddler, all: “ _Look, look, I won it, you dick, you should have listened!_ ”

And as much as Eddie complained, he’d spent the next hour helping him set the thing up in front of their actual TV, barely three feet from their couch, nearly as big as their wall and obstructing fucking everything, not entirely _just_ because he can’t say no, he’ll admit it.

He did it because he _loves_ Richie. Loves his big, dumb smile, and his loud, easy laugh, and the way he grins and overexcites himself when they do things together–especially stupid things like ruin the traffic of their living room.

It feels, of course, like sitting front row at the movie theater when Richie pulls Eddie down onto the couch with him to test it all out with _Back to the Future_. That is to say that it hurts Eddie’s fucking _neck_ to watch anything this way, all craned up half toward the ceiling, but by the sight of it, Richie couldn’t be happier.

He’s too tall for his head to rest even remotely near the back of the couch, more against the wall behind it–most likely why this isn’t straining him at all. He’s staring up at the screen like it’s his new favorite thing, like back when they were kids and he’d get a new toy just to run right over and share it with Eddie. It makes Eddie so fond, he’s pressing his lips to the side of Richie’s face before he can stop himself.

Richie looks over, pleasantly surprised, taps his hands nervously against Eddie’s legs, strewn over his lap. “Aw, _babe_ ,” he coos in that way he knows Eddie pretends to hate. “What’s the occasion?” he asks, as if Eddie isn’t all over him like a barnacle on a regular goddamn basis.

Eddie shrugs by way of explanation. “You’re really happy about this, huh?”

“I just–” Richie turns to flash Eddie his favorite crooked smile like he knows it makes Eddie’s heart double-skip, and Eddie wouldn’t put it past him. There’s something crazed in his eyes, though–something subdued but undeniably excited. Eddie can’t look away. “I think we’re really gonna like this thing.”

Rolling his eyes back onto the screen, Eddie decides not to ask and ruin the moment since he knows his boyfriend and it is, undoubtedly, a porn thing Richie’s thinking about right now, but barely a minute passes before his eyes trail back to him. He notes the way Richie drums his fingers against his knees, the way he can’t keep the smile off his face even after this long, the way he keeps subtly shifting himself closer under Eddie’s weight.

He watches all this and thinks the real reason he can’t say no to Richie is because, simply put, he doesn’t ever even remotely want to.

*

So then Richie decides they have to have a _party_ –they have to show this enormous thing off to the other losers and. Well, of course, Eddie doesn’t say no.

It’s not really any different from every other weekend at Richie and Eddie’s apartment aside from the enormous fucking projector screen taking up all their limited space, but at this point, it’s kind of more amusing than it is annoying.

“No, you’re wrong–it’s definitely annoying,” Stan tells him, where he’s holed up in the kitchen just to “feel like he can breathe,” as he put it a minute ago. “Am I even surprised you’d let him do this, you enabling _asshole?_ You could have at least warned me before I came over here, that your apartment’s a claustrophobia den right now!”

“Jesus, Stan, I’m–” Let it be known that Eddie is _not_ laughing at Stan’s claustrophobia, he would never ever do that, but Stan still glares at him like he’s _Richie_ as he snorts into his hand, brings his solo cup to his lips to bide for time or something. “I’m _sorry_ , I swear, I–I really didn’t think this would trigger you–”

“It didn’t _trigger_ me, Eddie, I’m not freaking out or anything, it’s just a little irritating– Are you seriously still fucking _laughing_ at me?”

“I’m just drunk, dude, I’m laughing at everything!” Eddie laughs, hands up in surrender, fingers loosening around his cup such that Stan takes it before he can drop it. “I’ll beat his ass for you later, if that’s what you want, just stop _looking_ at me like that, you’re never supposed to look at me like that, that’s the Richie Look!” He takes his cup, knocks it back.

Stan rolls his eyes, but otherwise, seems to take a fucking breather.

“Here, have some of this,” Eddie decides, bending down to grab a beer from Bev’s cooler. He uses the bottom of his shirt to twist the cap off for Stan like a bro, hands it over in a gesture of apology. “I’ll stay in here in the kitchen with you for as long as you need, if it helps.”

Finally, Stan unleashes a grin, taps at Eddie’s cup with his freshly opened beer bottle. “I knew you were my favorite of the two of you.”

Stan leans against the fridge, and eventually Eddie hops up onto the counter, talking this and that, getting steadily more and more tipsy. Bev comes into the kitchen shortly after, looking for more wine, only to lean against Eddie, elbows pressing into his thighs like he’s a mattress or something. She baits Stan into yet another competition for highest grades between the two of them, since Richie is taking a year off film school and they’d be idiots not to take advantage of that.

Eddie’s playing mindlessly with one of Bev’s curls when Mike steps into the kitchen, teeming with some kind of excitement he’s having trouble tamping down on. His eyes locate Eddie and says like he’d rehearsed it: “Richie’s looking for you.”

Eddie will never admit the way his heart squeezes at the very thought of Richie wanting him, maybe missing him even, in their own house. It hits him then that he hasn’t really seen his boyfriend all day, actually. They’d met each other home and barely got to look at each other before the losers arrived.

“What do you mean he’s looking for me, it’s an apartment?” Eddie demands, instead of saying any of that. He hides the smile he can’t really control behind his cup, downs the rest of his drink.

“Has anyone seen my _boyfriend?_ ” Richie starts shouting from somewhere outside the kitchen like he’s been listening. “My _starlight?_ My darling little _Spaghetti head?_ ”

Mike stares. “Just come out here dude, he’s not going to stop, and you know it.”

“ _My asthmatic acrobatic_ –”

“Excuse me,” Eddie says, moving Bev’s elbows.

He finds Richie sitting against the arm of their couch, long legs stretched out before him, facing the kitchen as if he knew that’s exactly where Eddie was. Ben and Bill are sitting on the couch like civilized humans, wincing at Eddie apologetically over Richie’s loud antics. “There he is!” Richie crows when Eddie emerges.

“Shut the fuck _up_ ,” Eddie snaps, kicking lightly at Richie’s legs so he can step between them. “You’re so fucking loud,” he complains, tries not to smile about it, but then Richie grabs him, pulls him closer, and suddenly he just can’t help himself.

“You’re not even watching the screen, dude,” Richie mumbles into Eddie’s chest.

Eddie’s arms rest easy and familiar over Richie’s shoulders. “Was I supposed to be?”

It’s not entirely true that Eddie hasn’t been watching them, out of curiosity mostly. He’d fully expected Richie to be playing something with Molly Ringwald, just to annoy Bev, or at the very least, _Beetlejuice_ , since Richie’s watched it at least once a week since they were thirteen, but instead, it’s been _home videos_ nonstop, and Eddie’s yet to figure out _what_ the fuck he’s going for here.

Over the years, Richie had made them watch some of them enough that Eddie knows them just by listening. From the kitchen he’d been able to hear some more recent ones, like the day Richie had finally gotten Stan to crack and tell them exactly _which_ publishing firm Bill’s new internship is. Richie grabbed the camera and took off there right that moment, Eddie and Stan rushing to keep up and begging him to _please, please, just please do not do this_. It’s never been more obvious why they don’t always tell Richie things than it was in that moment.

The video, Eddie remembers, picks up with the three of them surprising Bill at his new desk, and despite what Eddie had feared that day, Bill laughed in surrender to see them there, wasn’t even all that mad at Stan for blabbing, smiling at Richie behind the camera like he couldn’t be happier.

“ _This is it! You’re on your way up Big Bill!_ ” Richie crowed, camera shaking, jostling the focus on Bill just a bit in his excitement. “ _Just remember us little people when you make it. Like, when me and Eds here finally tie the knot, you have to write a beautifully moving piece about it_ –”

“ _Shut_ _up_ ,” Eddie had hissed, elbowing him in the gut as Richie laughed, making him drop the camera completely.

“Yeah, I mean,” Richie answers, lifting his head from Eddie’s chest. He looks up into Eddie’s eyes and it stops Eddie’s heart a bit. It’s not often Richie’s looking _up_ at him, glasses a bit crooked and curls truly, truly a mess now that Eddie can see the roots. He grins, crooked and dimpled and Eddie loves him so much. “They’re our _memories_ or some shit–this kinda thing is the whole reason people win projectors at radio office raffles.”

“Oh, sure,” Eddie hums, glancing at the screen for good measure.

It’s playing their first Christmas in the apartment, just two years ago. Eddie had never been super big about Christmas. Growing up, he’d thought he was allergic to pine needles, and that cut out most trees. He could cut himself on glass if an ornament broke, and the peppermint and cinnamon scents would only upset his asthma, so he’d been told, so he’d had to go without until recently.

On their first Christmas together, Richie had the camera trained on him the entire day. Eddie remembers having trouble deciding if it was annoying or endearing and deciding in the end that it, just like Richie, was both.

The camera’s angle lowers on the screen as Richie sets it beside his leg on the floor, still angled Eddie. They’re opening their final presents–Eddie unwrapping Pokémon Red and falling to pieces over it while Richie opens Nirvana tickets and screams so loud their neighbors bang at their wall.

“ _Wow_ ,” Richie starts once he’d calmed down, once he’d wiped the tears from his face, Eddie _remembers_. “ _Can’t believe there’s not a fucking ring in here, you cheapskate, do you even love me?_ ”

Eddie looks up at him, hiding his smile so poorly he can’t believe he’d even tried. “ _As if I would ever propose to you on Christmas by making you unwrap it like some 60’s bachelor? That shit’s embarrassing, man_.”

“ _Wow, fucking noted, won’t do that_.” It doesn’t sound as joking, Eddie realizes now, as he remembers.

Eddie hums, looks down to see Richie already looking up at him. He’s unashamed, doesn’t look away and it makes him frazzled–Richie still makes so him frazzled. “I don’t think anyone else here cares about ‘our _memories_ ,’ or whatever,” he says, tone light, but concern serious. Is it rude to invite your closest friends over only to then subject them to disgustingly domestic home videos of you?

“Eds, of course they care!” Richie takes his eyes off Eddie, acting like he’s at great pains to do so and turns toward Bill and Ben on the couch. “You guys care, right?”

“Of course we do–we’re in some of these,” Ben says at the same time Bill deadpans: “We were _t-t-t-told_ to c-care.”

“ _Jesus_ , Bill,” Richie swears, genuinely annoyed, and Eddie absolutely marvels at it as Richie turns, arms falling from Eddie’s waist just to fully glare at their friend. “You said you weren’t gonna be a dick.”

Bill holds his hands up in surrender, though he’s trying not to smile, Richie huffs about it, and Eddie wants to ask if his boyfriend–who has never been genuinely upset about something so trivial in all his life–is _okay_ , but then Richie’s turning back to him, smile plastered over his face.

It’s fake as shit and he gets to ponder that for all of two seconds.

“Eddie, Eddie!”

It’s Bev from the kitchen sounding even drunker than before. She’s giggling and snorting and sounding like an overall _nerd_. Over Richie’s shoulder, Ben is grinning uncontrollably, sad and lovesick, the same way Richie is watching Eddie now, hazel eyes peering almost desperately up into his.

“Eddie, come in here– _come on_ , Stan is–!” Bev lapses into giggles again, high-pitched and unfettered and so adorably endearing, Eddie can’t help but smile himself. “Just come in here, come back!”

“Wait,” Richie grabs at his wrist so quickly, Eddie doesn’t think he even meant to do it. Concern growing, Eddie’s eyes land on Richie’s hand and follow his arm all the way up to Richie’s sheepish expression. “I…”

“It’ll be two seconds,” Eddie tells him, wants to tease him for being so clingy, but the panicked look in Richie’s eye tells him that’d be a bad move. “Come with,” he offers up instead.

“No, it’s okay! It’s totally okay!” It’s fake as shit, not that Eddie gets to ponder it at all. Richie does it slow and subtle as if he thinks Eddie doesn’t notice, but how could he not see him sneaking his arm behind himself toward Bill, like he’s seeking him out for comfort and–

What the fuck is going _on?_

“Okay…” Eddie agrees hesitantly, but he stares Richie down all the while, hopes he’s conveying well enough with his eyes that they’re definitely having a talk later.

In the kitchen is a catastrophe.

“Eddie, I really tried to get him down myself…” Mike starts, giving up since Eddie can see perfectly well for himself that Bev and Stan are, as expected, both drunk. They’re sitting crisscross applesauce respectively on the kitchen counter, and atop the fucking refrigerator.

“Um,” Eddie says.

Once she realizes Eddie’s there, Bev is laughing all over again, staring unblinkingly up at Stan who is leaning against the wall, head pressed against the ceiling. He looks down at Eddie like this is all super normal.

“I’m losing my mind, I’m _losing_ it,” Beverly wheezes, hopping off the counter to lean against Eddie’s side like he holds up her world. “I fucking told you, you didn’t believe me–”

“Fucking get down from there, you’re _drunk_ ,” Eddie tells Stan, stomping his foot for good measure because sometimes he’s still got the mannerisms of his inner fourteen-year-old neurotic basket case.

“I am _not_ ,” Stan slurs, “Bev is.”

“You can both fucking be drunk at the same time!” Eddie snaps. “It’s happened before! It’s happened many times! One of you can’t monopolize being drunk between the two of you–that’s not how it fucking _works_ , and if you weren’t so fucking drunk, you’d know that!”

Bev actually snorts, and Mike tries to look like he isn’t laughing behind his hand, but his shoulders are, incriminatingly, shaking.

“Mike, just jerk him down if you have to, I need to check on Richie–”

“You’re leaving again?” Bev interrupts, sounding generally bummed out, like he won't just be ten feet away in the living room. Her hands latch sweetly around his arm. “This is obviously where the party is, you should drink more! Just hang out.” Eddie blinks down at her, wonders why his friends are being so clingy tonight.

“You can come with me,” he tells her, just like he told Richie.

“I can’t leave Stanny, he needs me,” she says, because she and Stan always get like this when they drink together, but trails drunkenly behind him, nonetheless.

He and Mike slide by one another, Mike to wrestle Stan, probably kicking and screaming like a cat, down from the fridge and Eddie to check on his boyfriend, lugging along an extra 120 pounds by the arm and trying not to think about anything in terms of absolute absurdity.

In the kitchen archway, he stops.

Not because Bev starts digging her heels into the linoleum, not because Stan has literally started screaming, but because in the living room, Ben, Bill, and Richie are in an honest to god huddle on the couch–heads leaned together, Bill and Ben’s hands on Richie’s shoulders, the whole nine yards.

They’re talking in hushed voices, Eddie can hear them whispering, but not the words. He squints at Richie’s back as if that will help him hear them better, but all he can hear is the home videos.

“ _Day one of the rest of our lives_ ,” Richie says on the projector, and Eddie’s eyes dart right over. He’s nineteen years old there, trying to grow a mustache and Eddie remembers hating it more than life. He’s wearing a sweaty sweatshirt and baggy jeans and he looks disgusting. He’s standing in the middle of their bare furniture-less living room because they’d just moved into their then new apartment. His eyes dart off to the side and his grin grows and grows. The video blurs for a second as Richie turns the camera. “ _Come here, I’m documenting move-in day._ ”

“ _Get that thing out of my face, I’m gross!_ ” Eddie orders, a blur of motion and color as he leaps across the room to push the camera down before Richie can do a thing to stop it.

“ _Dude, if you’re gross what am I?_ ” Richie tries to lift it again in a way Eddie remembers Richie thinking was subtle only for Eddie to slap it right back down. It happily records their new carpet and Richie’s right shoe.

“ _Like, super fucking gross, Rich!_ ”

“ _Okay, I walked right into that._ ”

“ _Yeah! So, turn it off! We need showers and sleep dude, it’s been, like, the longest day!_ ”

“ _No, it’s okay that we’re gross, it’s like–it’s honest or some shit, we’ll wanna remember this._ ”

“ _Richie, I swear to god–_ ”

“ _We did it, Eds._ ”

It sounds different, those last few words– _weightier_. Richie isn’t just talking about moving. None of this had ever been just about moving.

It was hard to do this–crazy to think they even could when they first started to talk about it. It was promising and light and so, so comforting to _dream_ about it back then when he was trapped in his room, not allowed to go anywhere or do anything but worry and think about death and disappearing. It used to be so meaningful to him to dream about leaving someday.

He used to think of himself then as a plant that had long since outgrown its pot. He used to imagine himself getting a new pot, a _bigger_ pot with room for another plant, and he and that other plant could grow roots together, around each other, and no one would try to clip them or pull them apart.

“ _I’m kinda super, stupid proud of us_ ,” Richie says on the screen, as if he knew exactly the way Eddie was spiraling. He probably did, he was the best at it. “ _Humor me, man. Day one of the rest of our lives?_ ”

It’s blurry as Richie raises the camera, resting it defiantly on Eddie, who’s wide-eyed and conflicted. He’s dirty and sweaty with messy hair. He looks this close to crying. He smiles though, lips quirked in gratitude as he looks over the camera up into Richie’s eyes. “ _Fine, shithead, day one of the rest of our lives,_ ” he surrenders.

Richie huffs, loud and close to the speaker. “ _That’s right! Gross and super fucking sweaty,_ ” he says, and Eddie rolls his eyes.

“ _That’s been us every day of our lives._ ”

Richie laughs, says: “ _Hey, I’m gonna marry you someday,_ ” and Eddie smirks back at him like it’s a challenge.

“ _Dude, sure, if you fucking shower by then._ ”

Eddie feels Richie staring at him before he sees it. He looks over and catches him right in the act from the couch, looking sheepish and awkward, like he’s just been caught doing something he shouldn’t have, something embarrassing. Eddie smiles at him and Richie smiles back just as helplessly.

He just. He never expected to be able to pull this off. He never thought he’d get to have Richie and be happy, too.

“Look, you and Mike can handle babysitting Stan without me,” Eddie tells Bev, and this time, she doesn’t cling to him as he leaves her in the kitchen, eyes on Richie the whole time.

He barely makes it to the couch before Richie is pulling him down onto him. “Hey,” he greets, chin hooked over Eddie’s shoulder. He wraps his arms tight around Eddie’s middle and has the nerve to ask: “Are you back now?”

“Yeah, as long as Stan manages not to kill himself. What are you guys talking about?”

“Not you!” Ben blurts out at the same time Bill says: “Def-finitely n-not you,” and Richie groans out loud.

“You guys are such _dicks_ , oh my god, _why are you such dicks?_ ”

“Why are you talking about me?” Eddie demands, leering threateningly at sweet, sheepish, red-faced Ben who he knows is the weakest link out of the three of them.

“I’m always talking about you, babe.”

“Flattery’s not gonna get you anywhere, dickhead.” Except for when it does. Like, all the time, regularly, even now. It always has and Richie knows that.

In the background, as if to prove a point, is Richie asking Eddie out for the first time. They’re seventeen years old and Eddie’s been pining for almost half his life, hanging on Richie’s every word, on his every touch, on his every smile, thinking he was the only one.

The view is distanced and voyeuristic, because Bev’s recording on Richie’s camera from behind the bushes in Eddie’s front yard for Richie’s promposal.

Except, they _can’t_ go to prom together, not as two guys, so Eddie’s sure this is just another elaborate roundabout “ _I fucked your mom_ ” joke waiting to happen. Richie’s got his boombox on the lawn, playing something both loud and by _Genesis_. He’s got a large poster in hand that the camera can’t see, but that Eddie remembers says: “ _To the Kaspbrak that’s good at mouth-to-mouth, I was thinking we could try it out at PROM?_ ” and Eddie had threatened to leave him outside until he hastily stuttered out which Kaspbrak he meant, and only then did Eddie even start to _consider_ that he might actually be serious.

“ _I know we can’t really go to prom, but we could hang in the clubhouse, just us, if you wanted and like. Make our own? U-unless you think that’s stupid, then_ –”

“ _Wait, Rich, hang on, shut up a second–do you_ like _me?_ ”

“ _Like_ –” Richie snorts, like he can’t believe it, “– _yeah, dumbass. Thanks for finally noticing_.”

Eddie tackles him in a very miscalculated hug that sends them right off the porch and into the grass, and Eddie’s profusely apologizing and Richie’s laughing and _laughing_ , and he says, holding Eddie’s wrists: “ _You won’t regret this, I promise_.”

And Eddie tries to sit up, but Richie’s grip stops him, sprawled across Richie’s lanky body as he is, says: “ _I better not_ ,” but he’s bluffing, and he’s blushing, and he’s an entire _mess_ , and then Bev starts cooing into the speaker.

“ _Aw, guys, when’s the wedding?_ ”

“ _Shut up, Bev!_ ”

“ _Asshole, you made her record this?!_ ”

“Thanks, by the way, for going to lame, gay, bunker clubhouse Richie-prom with me,” Richie sighs into his shoulder. “You know, in case I never thanked you for that.”

“It wasn’t _lame_. You got my first kiss that night, dumbass, how could you think it was _lame?_ That was our first date–wait, shut up, I know what you’re doing! I know you’re just trying to distract me.”

“Eds, why would I ever do that?”

They’re interrupted before Eddie can smack him, this time by Mike, rushing out into the kitchen doorway. Suddenly, Eddie notices that the kitchen is very loud behind Mike, and that it had been for a while. Bev is screaming her head off in there. Eddie doesn’t know how he managed to block it out. “Bill, come get your man.”

Bill goes wide-eyed at the far end of the couch. He looks pointedly ahead, trying to look unaffected and failing miserably. “He’s n-not my m-m-man.”

“Mikey, ask him if he’d like to change that,” Stan slurs from the kitchen, and everything freezes, especially Bill who’s so rigid in his seat, Eddie doesn’t think he’s breathing, and then–

“Oh, no way, assholes, you two are _not_ finally working out your tension _tonight!_ ”

Eddie snaps his attention to Richie who looks _appalled_ as he says it. “Dude, it definitely seems like they could be,” Eddie says. He shoots Bill a smile. He had always assumed, apparently incorrectly, that when this finally happened, they’d all be happy about it.

“ _No_ ,” Richie says pointedly, lightly moving Eddie off of him, “they’re _not_. I’m gonna go check on him,” he decides, rising from the couch.

“I’ll come too–”

“No!” Richie says, voice too fast and loud as he whips back around. “You should totally stay here! You earned it, since you already had to deal with drunk Stan, right? Bill, Ben–talk to Eddie?” And then he scampers right off into the kitchen like he didn’t just _unload_ his boyfriend on their best friends like he’s a _toddler_ and–

“What the _fuck_ –Ben, tell me what the fuck is going on, or _else_.”

“S-Stan’s an a-aff-ffectionate d-d-d-drunk,” Bill cuts in like an asshole, because he _knows_ that is not what Eddie means, and he _knows_ that Ben can’t lie.

“You _know_ that’s not–” Eddie stops himself, though. He can see something a little forlorn in Bill’s eyes, hiding behind his amusement at teasing Eddie. He switches tactics. “Oh my god, okay Bill, I don’t know _what_ the fuck is going on tonight, but you–you gotta know that Stan totally likes you, drunk or not. He’s _saying_ it because he’s drunk but, you know. He feels like that all the time.”

Bill blinks, takes a moment to stare right through Eddie, like he’s not quite ready to trust it. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Eddie shrugs. “Don’t tell him I told you. I promised I’d keep my mouth shut, but this–it’s getting ridiculous between the two of you.”

“Coming from you?” Ben rolls his eyes.

“I–I won’t t-tell,” Bill promises, before Eddie can snap back at Ben. “I ca-can’t bel-li-lieve you’d risk St-Stan’s w-wrath to t-t-tell me that.”

“Oh, it’s not free–tell me what Richie’s up to. You _owe_ me.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bill swears. Ben looks back and forth between them like he wants to make a run for it, but Eddie holds his ground, stares Bill down until he meets his eyes again. “I can’t tell y-you. R-R-Richie would k-kill me.”

“Well, Stan’s gonna kill _me_ , so we’re even!”

“Eddie, just don’t push this, okay?” Ben cuts in, red-faced, an earnest. He looks at Eddie like he’s facing a _creature_. “You don’t want to know yet, just trust me. Watch the videos, right? Richie put a lot of work into editing them all together.”

Yeah, but _why?_

Eddie doesn’t ask that though, knowing when he’s been beaten. He huffs and slumps back against the couch, arms crossed, not much unlike a toddler. He tries pointedly not to watch the videos from pure spite more than anything else, but it’s hard not to listen, hard not to hear little bits and pieces of a younger Richie and Eddie.

Richie yelling and screaming for attention, as usual. In this case, fucking up on his board and landing face-down on the pavement, board rolling the rest of the way down the street without him.

Eddie already yelling and reprimanding him before he’s even reached him, as always.

“ _You fucking moron_ _, now I gotta clean these so they don’t get infected, why are you so stupid, how many fucking times have I told you that you need to wear protective gear whether you think it looks cool or not, one of these days you’re gonna fucking kill yourself_ –”

Mike interrupting from behind the camera. “ _Dude, what are you smiling at?_ ”

Eddie can’t help but peek up when he hears that, finds himself stunned to see the way Richie’s _beaming_. He’s sprawled out on his back on the concrete as Eddie fusses over his busted face, beaming like he hasn’t just had the wind knocked out of him, beaming like he isn’t splitting his lip further, and fifteen-year-old Eddie doesn’t even seem to notice.

“ _He loves me_ ,” Richie answers. It’s loud and overly goofy on purpose, the way he says it, but there’s also something else there. Something low and thoughtful. Hopeful. Eddie can hear that now, but the Eddie of the past merely tilts his face further down, rolls his eyes as if that will hide his pink cheeks from Mike, as if that will convince Richie he isn’t right. ~~~~

“ _Jesus, just get married already_ ,” Mike says.

“ _Someday_ ,” Richie grins, and Eddie smacks him, cheeks blazing.

“Hey, Bill, Ben–a little help?”

It’s Mike hanging reluctantly out of the kitchen doorway like he hates to interrupt. All three of them avoid Eddie’s glare as Ben and Bill wordlessly rise from the couch and edge around him. They squeeze silently past Mike into the kitchen and Mike sends Eddie a lack-luster shrug that comes across more like a wince.

Eddie’s had it.

Since when does he just take Richie’s shit? _Never_ , that’s since when. He storms over to the kitchen with a new resolve. Realistically, he knows he can’t physically get by Mike, but maybe he could scare his way past.

“Let me in there, Mike.”

“No can do, sorry.”

“Oh, fuck _me_.”

With that, Eddie gives up on having any dignity whatsoever and starts jumping, leaning, tip-toing, ducking to Mike’s mortification– _whatever_ he needs to do to be able to see what is going on in their fucking kitchen.

“ _Richie!_ ”

“Y-yeah babe? Little busy!”

“With _what_ , asshole?!”

“Come on, man,” Mike says, as Eddie actually starts trying to _climb_ him, but Eddie doesn’t _care_ because this is somehow the most ridiculous thing Richie’s ever put him through.

Beneath Mike’s raised arm, Eddie can see him, huddled together with Bill, Stan, and Bev this time against the fridge and the wall, and _again_ with the _whispering_. He’s got his hands over Bev and Stan’s mouths respectively and he looks over frantically at Mike, looking shocked to make eye-contact with Eddie instead and that’s _it_.

“What the _fuck_ is going _on_ , dickhead?!”

If he could just slip past Mike–who’s guarding the kitchen like a goalie at this point–then he could make one of them talk. Ben who can’t lie, or maybe Bev and Stan who are too drunk not to babble if Richie’s gotta forcefully shut them up–he could make _someone_ talk if he could just get _past_.

But then Richie’s rushing out around Mike as if he knows exactly what Eddie’s thinking, leaving the drunken liabilities to Bill and Ben as he walks Eddie gently backward into the living room.

“Dude, what the hell?” Eddie demands, and he starts to _really_ get going, but then Richie’s putting his big hands on his shoulders, squeezing like he does when he’s trying to calm Eddie down, and Eddie doesn’t _want_ to be calmed down he wants to be told the fucking truth. He starts to say that, but Richie cuts him off.

“Eds, you trust me, right?”

“No.”

“Come on,” Richie hums, and he ducks down, intercepts Eddie’s hard gaze from where he’s glaring at the floor. “Really.”

Eddie shrugs, heavy and childish, and Richie snorts.

“I know you do, asshole,” he laughs, and he reaches up with one hand to tug playfully at a curl hanging over Eddie’s face. When Eddie looks up, he lowers his hand, rests it softly against the side of Eddie’s face and Eddie can’t help but lean into it. “Can you just give me ten minutes?”

“But–”

“Ten minutes tops, dude. And then I’ll explain everything. Promise.”

Richie’s never like this, never desperate and antsy and _frazzled_ like this–like he’s investing in a big risk. Richie doesn’t see things as risks, has never really been afraid of taking new chances. _Eddie’s_ the thinker, _Eddie’s_ the planner–Richie thoughtlessly throws himself into any little thing that catches his fancy and backstrokes through it every time like sinking was never an option for him. It drives Eddie _nuts_.

But now Richie watches him, waiting with wide cautious eyes, and Eddie still doesn’t know what to think. Before he can stop himself, though, he’s fondly rolling his eyes and setting a timer on his watch. As if he could ever tell him no.

“Ten minutes, shithead.”

“Awesome, _thanks_ , babe,” Richie sighs in relief, and he grins so wide, Eddie forgets to be worried for a second. “You’re the _best_ , you won’t regret it, I hope!”

“You _hope_ – _?_ ”

Richie’s kissing him before he can say anything else, then he’s gone before Eddie can kiss back, swooping back into the kitchen and pulling Mike in with him this time. Eddie glances down at his watch like a dumbass and thinks this better be good. As he starts to mindlessly pace the small space between the couch and the coffee table, he thinks it better be good because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if it turns out–like he’s starting to fear–to be bad.

“ _This sucks_ ,” intones a younger Eddie from the screen.

Present Eddie looks up and takes barely half a second to remember this day just from the setting. He’s fourteen years old, sitting on the edge of the woods at the quarry, bare legs drying off against the dirt and grass and he’s supposed to hate it, but he doesn’t. He never did. When he’s with the losers, and they’re all strong together, he forgets everything he’s supposed to be afraid of.

They’ve been here all day, so long that the sun is setting, casting Eddie all orange through the shadows of the trees. Before him, still in the water are Bill and Ben, both desperately vying for Bev’s attention completely unbeknownst to her. It’s been happening all summer. He thinks he’d be mostly fine with that if not for the fact that whatever’s going on with the B-triad seems to be spreading.

Mike has met a nice girl who he runs into every now and then when he goes to the library for books, and even Stan has a girl in his class, who’s obviously got a crush on him, even if he doesn’t really seem to notice.

“ _What sucks?_ ” asks a fourteen-year-old Richie Tozier, high-pitched and squeaky from behind the camera. Young Eddie slides his gaze away from the water to look back at him, and his eyes are so soft, it’s unbelievable neither of them _knew_.

Richie’s sitting in the grass, too, with Eddie just a bit in front of him. The camera won’t see it, but Eddie remembers the way Richie fiddled with his shorts, the grass, his camera sitting safely on the ground as he sat there, like he couldn’t look at him, but his camera could. He knows now that Richie’s camera always looked enough for the both of them.

Eddie goes back to facing the commotion of the B’s and he sighs. Knows Richie is listening when he speaks again. “ _Next year, we’re going to high school and Bev will choose one of them. And Mike’s got that girl from the library, and now Stan... We’re starting to couple up–this is how friendships end_.”

“ _Whoa, calm down, man, it’s not that serious. I mean, I guess you’re right about the B’s and Mike, but if Stan finally starts dating one of his birds and everyone leaves you and me out, then_ we’ll _just couple up_.”

Eddie’s head whips back around so fast then that he kind of loses his balance, slams his hand out a bit behind himself. His eyes are defensive beneath furrowed brows as he waits and he looks like such a baby, present-Eddie wants to laugh.

Instead, past Richie does. “ _Yeah, you just say the word and I’ll dump your mom in a hot second. I’ll let you wear my letterman jacket and write you January Ember poems like Ben. We’ll go on dates and hold hands and kiss each other under the moonlight–_ ”

“ _Shut up, Richie, stop joking like that_.”

“ _Okay_ ,” Richie says, and Eddie remembers the way he’d shrugged simple and innocent, but his eyes glinted like he was just getting started, because he most definitely was. _“I’ll joke any way you want me to, Eddie my love_ ,” he coos, giggling when Eddie pretends to gag. _“That’s the compromise I’m willing to make for you, and in return, oh my god, we could totally honeymoon in Hawaii!_ ”

“ _Jesus, you’re annoying. Like, it’s incredible_.”

“ _Just admit you love me_.” If Eddie remembers correctly, Richie had winked at him and it made his insides turn to confetti.

“ _I’d sell you to science for nothing, Richie_ ,” Eddie manages, cheeks blazing as Richie cracks up. “ _All they’d have to do is ask me_ ,” he says, and Richie laughs and laughs.

Eddie checks his watch because it’s habitual rather than that he’s impatient. He checks it because if he doesn’t then he’d just be standing here grinning to himself in his living room over how much he loves Richie and that’s just. Unacceptable. Richie would never let him live it down.

He notes, as he thinks of Richie, that it’s gone completely silent in the kitchen. He focuses ahead again so he doesn’t think about that. Not that he really knows what’s happening when he looks back up.

Everything is blurry, and Richie’s breathing hard. The camera’s picking up blurred lines of green grass and grey cloudy sky, and then the blue of Eddie’s front door. He’s pushing it open without even knocking, rushing past Eddie’s mother on the couch.

“ _Don’t run in here!_ ” she screams after him but does little else to stop him. Eddie watches on, completely flabbergasted at his own mother’s nonchalance to something she’d have surely had a conniption over. This must have been before she got adamant about keeping Richie Tozier the hell out of her house and away from her son.

“ _Eddie! Eddie!_ ” Richie’s calling out, and he sounds _young_ as his feet slam too loud against the stairs, then he’s barreling into Eddie’s room and slamming the door behind him–his mother screams something up from downstairs at it–the camera held steady and upside down on Eddie’s bedroom door.

“ _Y-you can’t just come over here like this, my mom’ll–_ ” Eddie stammers out from somewhere off-screen and he sounds even _younger_ , somehow, sounds timid and small and everything he used to hate about himself. “ _You can’t just run up here like that, you know how she is, you know she hates_ –”

“ _Eddie, l-look what I got!_ ” Richie interrupts, and the camera moves too quick, blurs again something crazy before landing neutrally on the blue of Eddie’s bed comforter. He must have been holding the camera behind his back for this reveal and something about that is so sweet and adorable that present-Eddie can’t stand it.

“ _Isn’t that your dad’s?_ ”

“ _Yeah! He gave it to me, he said I could have it! Look–_ ” Richie aims the camera better to capture Eddie where he sits on his bed and god, he’s so _young_. He’s tiny and tame, but even through Richie’s grainy video he can see the endless energy trapped inside that he’s too afraid to let out.

Richie’s well on his way to changing that.

“ _Shit, I think it’s been on the whole way over here_ ,” Richie laments, turning the camera up and he looks ridiculous at this angle–it’s basically up his nose, the view all plastic glasses frames, bug eyes and nostril. “ _Whatever_ ,” he decides, turning the lens back to Eddie who’s grinning back and forth between it and Richie himself as he rushes over, plops himself beside him on the bed. “ _This is my first video ever on this thing. I wanted to make sure you were in it_.”

“ _Me? Not Bill, or Stan, or_ –”

“ _Yeah, duh_ ,” Richie says, like it’s nothing. Like it’s obvious.

He scoots closer to Eddie on the bed, bringing the camera up so it can see both of them, and god they must be eleven or twelve years old here. Eddie’s a tiny bird-like thing, all big eyes and shy smiles, and Richie is like a _character_ , all big glasses and magnified eyes, and a goofy endless smile that will never go away no matter how old he gets.

He looks right at the screen, but Eddie’s gaze is stuck on Richie. “ _This is Eddie_ ,” he says, like he’s got an audience. In Richie’s mind, he always does. “ _He’s my best friend in the whole wide world, and he’s gonna be in all my videos._ ”

“ _All of them?_ ” Eddie echoes, skeptical. He looks warily at the camera, then back to a beaming Richie. “ _God, Richie, how many are you gonna make?_ ”

“ _I don’t know, thousands? I’m gonna be big someday, Eddie, and I’m taking you with me!_ ”

Eddie snorts. “ _Richie–_ ”

“ _Someday, I’m gonna be rich and famous, and I’ll live in Hollywood like all the greats! I’ll make lots of money and have a really big house and you’ll be with me._ ” He takes his eyes bashfully off the camera to meet Eddie’s wide, awed gaze. “ _Right? You’ll always be with me?_ ”

Even though Eddie doesn’t really remember this day, he knows the look on his face. He’s looking at Richie like he can’t say no, doesn’t even want to try, but he knows he’s also probably thinking about his mother. As the silence stretches, Eddie takes a moment to think about it all, weigh the pros and cons like these aren’t just abstract ideas for future versions of themselves, but then finally, he nods.

“ _Yeah. All the time_ ,” he says, and even then, he means it.

“ _Me and you_ ,” Richie says back, and it’s softer than anything he’s ever said before, Eddie knows that. So, of course he’s gotta ruin it. “ _Just stick with me, Eddie Spaghetti_ ,” he crows in his loudest terrible British accent, throws an arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “ _I’ll take care of you!_ ”

Eddie grimaces through pink puffed up cheeks, shrugs Richie’s arm off. “ _Ew, don’t call me that_ ,” he says, but doesn’t shrug Richie’s arm off again when he puts it right back.

 _God_.

It’s all Eddie’s really got the time to think. He doesn’t really get the time to truly _marvel_ at the way he and Richie have always been like that–have always, always loved each other more than anything else on the planet, always had a special piece of themselves just reserved for the two of them that no one else could ever, ever touch before the next video starts.

And this one’s gotta be the kicker.

Richie is a little kid, maybe five or six years old, sitting at the kitchen table his parents used to have, and Eddie doesn’t remember this at all. Richie’s a mess, covered in paint along his cheeks and fingers. He’d been finger painting, obviously, but something’s made him stop, eyes wide as he looks up just above the camera.

“ _What’s that mean?_ ” he asks.

“ _It means your daddy and I love each other very much_ ,” answers Maggie Tozier offscreen, patient and sweet just like always. Eddie used to always wish she could be his mother. “ _It means we made a promise to each other to be together forever no matter what_.”

“ _Whoa, forever?_ ” Richie echoes, eyes blown even larger behind his ridiculously adorable glasses.

“ _Uh-huh_ ,” Maggie hums.

“ _No matter what?_ ”

“ _That’s right_ ,” Maggie laughs, and it’s kind of like a bell.

“ _Well then, I wanna marry Eddie_ ,” Richie decides. He’s got that look on his face that he gets when there’s no way he’ll be told no. He’s watching his mom with determined eyes, waiting for her reaction, but then she laughs, surprised and quiet and Richie grins back.

“ _Shouldn’t you ask him, first?_ ”

“ _Oh!_ ”

Then he’s smearing his paint-covered little fingers everywhere to get down from his chair. Maggie follows as he accidentally gets some on the wall. He runs on sock-clad little feet through the kitchen and into the living room where a six-year-old Eddie is sat at the coffee table, using crayons to color, surely because it’s less messy. One less thing for his mother to throw a fit over when she comes to get him.

Richie is brimming with excitement, bouncing in place as he asks. “ _Hey, Eddie, will you marry me, Eddie?_ ”

And Eddie looks up half a second from his picture before he shrugs, casting focused eyes back down. “ _Okay_ ,” he says, and goes right back to coloring, and Richie beams up at the camera so openly his cheeks should split, missing front tooth and all.

“ _You did it!_ ” Maggie cheers, surprised laughter still bubbling out of her and Eddie knows she wouldn’t have stopped this even if she wanted to. Wouldn’t have stopped it despite what Went was sure to think about it later–despite what _everyone_ would think about it when the two of them got older. “ _That’s how it goes. Congrats, Rich_ ,” she says with an amused sort of chortle, then ends the video.

The screen goes black, the videos are done, and all Eddie wants is Richie. He turns for the kitchen and stops right in his tracks. _There he is_ , Eddie thinks absently at the sight of Richie kneeling there on the carpet. He’s on the carpet, Eddie realizes–and he stops breathing altogether when he realizes–because he’s on one knee. There’s a ring in his hand. _Richie is on one knee and there’s a ring in his hand_.

“ _Oh_ ,” he wheezes–it comes out of him like it was _punched_ out–and he thinks, for a frantic moment, that this is what it’s all been leading up to. Not just the videos, but their lives. Slowly, but surely. Set in stone. Since the moment they met, they’ve inched closer and closer. From the moment Eddie learned what love was, he felt it for Richie. Since the minute Richie learned he could promise forever to someone, he’s been promising it to Eddie.

That’s what Richie’s been trying to say all night.

“Oh… _shit_ ,” Eddie gapes, falling back a bit; his legs hit the coffee table. “Rich?”

Richie laughs breathlessly, nervously back, and his eyes look _terrified_ behind his glasses, but he holds Eddie’s startled gaze anyway, holds it and holds it, and Eddie’s afraid to blink, lest he blink himself awake and none of this was real.

“Eds, baby, I–”

_Beep-beep-beep-beep–_

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eddie hisses, hastily fiddling with his watch, clumsier than usual at shutting the damn timer off. He forgot all about the stupid fucking timer, the goddamn ten minutes he’d promised Richie back when time meant _anything_ at all. “ _God_ ,” he breathes, once he finally gets it to stop beeping, and he’s so frazzled that he almost misses Richie’s slow smile–the same smile he’s had around Eddie for as long as they’ve known each other. “I’m sorry, you were–what were you–?” Despite his efforts, he just can’t seem to convey a single coherent thought, but he also can’t seem to shut himself _up_. “ _Say_ it, Richie, just–just _ask_ me– _what were you going to ask me?_ ”

But Richie doesn’t seem to mind all his babbling, since after all, he never has. He’s smiling up at Eddie with watery eyes, and for a second, there appears to be an _ocean_ of words on the tip of his tongue, but something about Eddie–the way he’s fidgeting, the way he can’t take his eyes off him, the way he’s not reluctant, or hesitant, but rather bursting at the seams–has Richie changing tactics.

Maybe once, he’d rehearsed something long and winding, full of anecdotes and horrible dick jokes, but this time, with Eddie watching him like that, he decides that six-year-old Richie said it best.

“Hey, Eddie, will you marry me, Eddie?”

And Eddie’s not crying. Even though he sees now all their friends back by the kitchen, witnessing it–even though he sees Ben specifically with Richie’s camera, documenting it–he’ll deny it. He can’t stop smiling, though, sniffling and blinking furiously as he closes the space between them, falling to his knees along the way, and Richie watches him like he’s otherworldly as their knees touch. They’re face to face and Eddie laughs softly, heart beating halfway out of his chest, quick and strong like a hummingbird.

“Okay,” he manages. He can’t stop nodding.

“Oh, thank _god_ ,” Richie grins, then he kisses Eddie senseless.

Somewhere in the background, Eddie can hear their friends congratulating them, begging them to stop, more likely, but it’s faint and faraway like it’s underwater. Richie’s holding him, slipping the ring on his finger, and nothing else really matters.

“Dickhead, you scared the shit out of me,” Eddie snaps when Richie pulls away and he can finally string two thoughts together. Richie cups his face and wipes the tears from his cheeks and Eddie feels those thoughts leaching right back away. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Rich. I mean it.”

“God, Eds,” Richie breathes, like he can’t quite believe it. “I told you we were gonna love the projector.”

It takes Eddie a near full thirty seconds to even process what Richie just _said_ , he’s so flabbergasted. “Are–are you fucking _kidding_ me?”

“I–look dude, I–” Richie stammers as he _realizes_ and tries to backpedal. “Look, this whole proposal wouldn’t have even happened without it! You have no idea, I had so many ideas over the last couple of months, and then this fell into my fucking _lap_ and you said _yes?!_ I’m gonna love this dumb projector for the rest of my _life_ –”

“Shut up, _shut up_ ,” Eddie laughs, because he’s swooning, and he’s floating, and he’s never been this happy in all his life. “You were dumb to worry. I would have never said no to you. I don’t think I even can. Get it?”

And as Richie grins and kisses him like he can’t contain himself, Eddie thinks he does.

**Author's Note:**

> So Richie really tried to keep this whole thing under wraps and surprise ALL the losers, but Bill found out like immediately and Ben overheard and they've been hyping him up to propose for weeks and then Richie got this projector and they knew what was happening.
> 
> Mike happened to overhear the three of them talking about it that night and that's why he was so excited to go get Eddie for Richie, Mike just loves love okay
> 
> Stan and Bev had no idea or they never would have been such nuisances I promise lmao but Richie told them when he went into the kitchen so they'd stop almost ruining everything
> 
> The losers are chaotic but we been knew sljdgbsljdgb
> 
> PLEASE come scream at me on ~~[Tumblr](https://ambitiousskychild.tumblr.com/)~~ if you fancy I could scream about reddie all day :)


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